You don't have to tell landscape architects that Houston is greening up.
More than a half-dozen legends of the business have been commissioned to work here over the past decade, designing and implementing the numerous park projects that are transforming the city into one of the most outdoor-friendly places in America.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that keeps a keen eye on that kind of progress, saw a significant enough trend to schedule its annual meeting of the minds in Houston this year.
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A number of leading landscape architects, designers and civic leaders will speak at the foundation's conference on March 11, then hit the trails March 12-13 to offer free, guided tours of signature "cultural landscapes" across the city.
Foundation president and CEO Charles Birnbaum said registration for the free tours opens at tclf.org Monday, and they're expected to fill up quickly.
The weekend "What's Out There" tours will offer Houstonians a "one-of-a-kind opportunity" to hear about ambitious projects from the designers themselves, said Birnbaum. "We want to make visible the often invisible hand of landscape architects and designers."
Thomas Woltz (Memorial Park), Scott McCready (Buffalo Bayou Park and the Sabine Promenade), Mary Margaret Jones (Discovery Green), Jack Ohly (Menil Collection Campus) and Steven Spears (Houston Arboretum & Nature Center) are among the tour leaders.
"We've never had so many star designers, let alone the city's parks director, leading our tours," Birnbaum said.
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The schedule is packed with more than 25 tour options that range from sprawling parks to intimate urban spaces, universities to corporate and community settings. Established in 1998 by Birnbaum, the foundation defines "cultural landscapes" as spaces that provide a sense of place and identity, map relationships with the land over time and are part of America's national heritage, whether they encompass thousands of rural acres or small historic homesteads.
The foundation will also launch its free, GPS-enabled guide to Houston's cultural landscapes, the fifth in a series, during the conference. Guides to Chicago, Denver, Toronto and Washington, D.C., are already published.
